Can people be taught to act more altruistically? Newly published research, measuring both brain activity and behavior, suggests the answer just may be yes.

“Our findings support the possibility that compassion and altruism can be viewed as trainable skills rather than stable traits,” a research team led by Richard J. Davidson and Helen Weng of the University of Wisconsin-Madison writes in the journal Psychological Science.

Specifically, they report that taking a course in compassion leads to increased engagement of certain neural systems, which prompts higher levels of altruistic behavior.

Stereotypes portray the teen brain as an out-of-control car with “no brakes, no steering wheel, and only an accelerator,” says APS Fellow BJ Casey. Research shows that teenagers take risks because reward centers develop more quickly than control centers in their brains. But changes in the adolescent brain ultimately help prepare teens to become independent of their parents. APS Fellow Ruth Feldman, Clancy Blair, and Angela L. Duckworth also speak about self-regulation across the lifespan in APS President Nancy Eisenberg’s 2015 Presidential Symposium.

A “Brain Connectivity Methods” workshop will be held July 27–31, 2015, at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Participants will learn to use the connectivity toolbox: SPM12, FSL, and CONN. We’re […]